The Reunion
by A Study in Reichenbach Feels
Summary: Post-Reichenbach. After Sherlock's death, John had to live without him, and it's taken such a toll that Sherlock finally shows himself after a year of hiding out as a dead man. Happy ending, it's okay. Rated T for some language.


"Sherlock!" John screamed, jolting up in his bed. He was breathing heavily, cold sweat dripping from his face. 'Another one,' he thought.

John laid his head back on the warm pillow and stared at the ceiling. Nightmares of his friend's suicide still flogged his miserable nights.

A year had gone by. A year to the date since Sherlock Holmes was pronounced dead.

Until he had met Sherlock, the genius detective, he never realized how alone he was.  
He had felt at home when he was in Afghanistan. The soldiers were his family and he fought every day to keep them by his side. Then, he was shot and forced to take leave.

That was when he realize that without the military, he truly had no home.

He had settled in London, of course, where else? It was there he was destined to meet the infamous Sherlock Holmes.  
But what if he hadn't? What if he had chosen somewhere else in search of reasonable housing? He would not have the pain of this tremendous loss in his heart, sure.  
But he also would not have experienced the adventures he had with Sherlock.

'And they,' he thought, 'were priceless.'

_

John Watson slowly rose from his coma of hallucinations. He put on his robe and began boiling some water for his tea. John then collapsed into his chair in the living room.

One year. John was still managing to keep up the payments on this little apartment on Baker Street with copious overtime at the hospital and some leniency from Mrs. Hudson. He couldn't let it go to someone else. No, 221B had so much more significance than just an address. He couldn't abandon it, it was one of the few places that still honored the memory of Sherlock Holmes.

John looked desolately at the empty chair across from him. He could practically make out the form of his friend, palms pressed together resting on his chin, thinking franticly over the latest case.

The skull was still there, on the left side of the mantelpiece. Skull was Sherlock's oldest friend. John wondered what secrets of Sherlock's that skull had hidden in its vacant bones. What inner thoughts had he shared with the skull that had never been spoken to a living soul? What did Sherlock have locked away in that overactive brain of his?

"There's no sense wallowing in all these questions now," John cursed.

_

The tea kettle whistled loudly. He got up and finished his morning tea, then sat down at the kitchen table. The teacup sat firmly in his hands because there was still no room on the table.

John hadn't moved a thing of Sherlock's since his suicide. Everything was exactly where he had left it. The microscopes, test tubes, various chemicals and other equipment were all there in the same spots. Every day, John looked over everything, ensuring it stayed that way.

He regularly brushed off Mrs. Hudson about cleaning up the place, but never explained to her why he needed it to stay that way. In case Sherlock were to come back and question him as to where his things were, although he knew it was silly, he refused to give up hope that Sherlock was still alive. John wouldn't want to mess up his sock index again, would he?

The ever witty and sarcastic Sherlock Holmes could not have been caught in such a plight of circumstances that he would choose to take his own life. He was much too fond of himself for that. If his reputation was hurt, he'd simply ignore it until he won his name's honor back. It just couldn't be true; it didn't make a lick of sense. What he had said in his last moments didn't sound like the Sherlock John had known.

"I'm a fake."

But it couldn't be true. John Watson refused to acknowledge it.

"In fact, tell anyone who will listen..." Sherlock had said, gazing at him from the hospital rooftop.

However, that was the one thing John had dishonored about Sherlock. He hadn't told a soul about what was said on that phone call. Truthfully, he would not have told anyone there was a phone call if the police had not checked the phone Holmes dropped on the rooftop before he plummeted to his death.

'No, John stop that,' he said to himself. 'Don't think about it all over again...'

John felt tears pushing their way to his eyelids, fighting to fall down his cheek. He held them back as long as he could. Nevertheless, with a single thought, the tears in his eyes began streaming down his hot cheeks.

'My best friend... my only friend...is dead.'

_

John reached for his handkerchief. He wiped the tears from his eyes and cleared his throat before answering his ringing phone.

"Hello, John Watson speaking."

John listened to Lestrade go on about a case they were stumped on. Lestrade was asking for John to come down to the crime scene.

"Yes, I'll come immediately," John replied and hung up.

John dressed, wrapped Sherlock's blue scarf around his neck, and descended the stairs. Outside, he waved for a taxi and got in.

"Swarovski on Regent Street, please," John directed the cabby.

"Sure thing."

John stared out the window the entire ride there, just as Sherlock used to do. Lestrade had started calling on him recently. Considering Sherlock's absence, John assumed that Lestrade hoped he had picked up on some of Sherlock's methods. Essentially, he had been trying to fill in Sherlock's old shoes by chipping in for the police department. This time, it was a jewelry robbery.

'He's got some bloody big shoes to fill...' John thought.

The taxi pulled to a stop near multiple police vehicles. John got out and paid the cabby.

"Keep the change."

"Thanks." The cabby pulled away and John walked across the street to join Lestrade.

_

John wasn't the proper genius Sherlock was. He knew it and they knew it, but for some reason he felt the necessity to be as quick as Sherlock. John wanted to keep him alive in his heart and theirs; he needed to make Sherlock proud.

After a few hours at the crime scene, John provided Lestrade with a lead and left the rest to him. He didn't exactly get off on this sort of thing like Sherlock did. If it were Sherlock on the case, John would be out of breath trying to catch up. Sherlock would have been so excited that he would already be half-way across town at his suspect's flat, probably breaking in.

But John was not Sherlock, that was certain. When he finished up his business at the crime scene, he walked to the little diner that he and Sherlock went to once. John insisted on the same booth they had sat in when they were trying to identify the man that started the serial suicides.

_

John ate his lunch and the waiter brought his bill.

"Aren't you John Watson?" his waiter asked him.

"I am."

"I am a huge fan of your blog!"

"Oh? Well, thank you." John smiled half-heartedly and took out the money to pay for his meal. He hadn't blogged about Sherlock since before Sherlock's death. John received so many messages online questioning why he had stopped or asking what happened to Sherlock or if any of the rumors were true.

He had not replied to one of them.

"Don't mean to be direct, but how'd it feel to have the guy you blogged about all the time turn out to be a fake?"

John's smile melted. "Excuse me?"

"I mean it must be tough to have someone you believed in so much let you down."

John's face burned hot with anger, his breathing intensifying.

"And then with his sui-..."

John sprung out of the booth, nearly knocking the waiter to the ground, and stormed through the front door. Everyone stared, but he didn't pay them any attention.

_

Why? Everywhere he went, people talked about Sherlock like he was a fraud, without thinking of getting the other side of the story. None of them even knew Sherlock; John did. They didn't know what he did or how he did it.

All they knew was what the press conjured up. And they blindly ate up every word. The whole city was against him!

Even though Sherlock was gone, John was still uneasy about it. All this time and they hadn't let it go. No one had heard it from Sherlock's own mouth.

Except John.

But he still refused to listen to that sad, cracked voice in his head. He put it out of his mind every waking hour.

There had to have been something behind it.

John stumbled through his chaotic thoughts as he trudged along the London streets. It began to rain and he looked up at the sky.

Normally he would have pulled up his collar and increased his pace, but not today.

John did nothing to protect himself against the sudden torrential downpour and let every part of him droop in the tears of heaven, including his smile.

He was too distraught to care. Sherlock's death was hitting him especially hard today, the one year anniversary.

John was actually surprised at himself for keeping it together all through the crime scene and lunch.

But now, lumbering through the puddles accumulating amidst the cold, stone streets, John began thinking, once again.

He wondered why.

He wondered how it could have been different if he never came to London. He wondered what made Sherlock take the fall. John doubted it was Sherlock's idea.

John had lost it a few months earlier and, while slightly intoxicated, began throwing punches at his therapist.

She evaded his attacks one by one. In-between them she somehow found the words to talk his anger down.

John collapsed onto the floor letting his emotions regurgitate themselves.

"I'm not unstable..." John said to his therapist afterwards, "I simply can't seem to find my feet."

"That's a part of being unstable, John."

_

John closed his eyes. He was drenched in the rainstorm, standing over a gravestone that read "Sherlock Holmes".

Thunder cracked in the distance.

"Hello," John let his lips curl into a partial smile. "I haven't missed a day since you were put to rest here...and I presume I never will."

He sat in the mud and was quiet for a bit. John listened to the rain as it unceasingly pattered on the granite of Sherlock's grave marker.

"My therapist," John began, "says I need to let go. She says I need to let go of the past so I can have a better future. But...I don't think she understands."

He paused. "You _were_ my future, but you were taken from me. If I try to let you go...I don't think I could live with myself. And well, you're still living within me. Even after I just met you, I don't know why, but I took an interest to you and your ways. And...Perhaps you'll never get to explain them."

"Everyone thinks you're a fake, you know. But, uh, I'll never let anyone convince me you told me a lie...so just stop...being dead. Could you do that for me, Sherlock? One more miracle."

John sighed and reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a cigarette and a match. He struck the match and lit the cigarette.

"I know I'm not much of a smoker but, well, it's been a year. This is for you."

John brought the cigarette to his mouth, but before he could inhale, it was snatched out of his hands. John was startled and looked up at a tall man in a long black coat as he began the cigarette John wasn't able to.

_

"Thank you, John, I was dying for a smoke," Sherlock smirked at his own sick joke.

"Sh-Sherlock?!" John croaked in unbelief.

Sherlock smiled. "Hello, John."

John sprung to his feet and stared at him in denial. "You're dead! I saw you fall!" he pointed and the gravestone, "I'm at your bloody grave, for Christ's sake!"

"Sometimes, even though almost always what you see right in front of you is law, sometimes what you see with your own two eyes deceives you." Sherlock explained.

He seemed astounded at his own explanation, as if he wouldn't have believed it either, being a scientific and realistic man, if he were in John's place.

John stood there troubled, his trousers filthy with wet mud and grass. He was taking a while to let this all sink in, still partially convinced he was hallucinating.

He lifted his muddy hand to Sherlock's face. He didn't resist, and John gently rested his hand on Sherlock's cheek. He was real, tangible.

John choked up. "You're...You're alive..." he looked into his companion's face, eyebrows tense. "You're here."

"Excellent deduction," Sherlock chuckled.

John clenched his hand into a fist and plunged it into Sherlock's face.

Sherlock tottered and cupped his bleeding nose with his hands. He shot a confused look at Sherlock.

John repressed his thoughts, but stood firm in his decision to injure him.

"Well John, you've punched me before, but I think this one was intended."

"Excellent deduction," John mocked. "You bloody _bastard_! You let me believe you were** dead**! IT'S BEEN A YEAR, SHERLOCK!" John cried as tears of rage streamed down his eyes. "Do you know-" his face curled with emotion as he shifted about and crossed his arms, "Do you know how hard it's been?"

Sherlock looked down, ashamed. "I know."

"Do you?" Another tear.

"...I do. I watched you every day, John."

_

They stood in silence.

"I watched you barely able to get up. I watched you cry over your tea and try to comfort Ms. Hudson. I've watched as a shadow when you take my place and helped Lestrade when he got in a jam. I've watched..." his voice broke.

His blue eyes became veiled with a mask of salty tears as he tried to regain his voice.

"I've watched," Sherlock directed his attention to his own gravestone, "As you sat by my grave faithfully, every day. You came every single day to talk to me. To ask me why. To tell me stories about you, about me, and about how much I had changed you."

A muddy hand still printed on Sherlock's face, he looked into John's distant eyes and smiled.

"Is it true?"

"Which part?"

"Did I change you?"

John was sweating profusely. 'Thank God for the rain,' he gave thanks inaudibly.

He avoided eye contact, ignoring that fact that Sherlock was reading him at this very moment, already confirming the answer to his own question.

Sherlock smiled again. "So it is true."

_

John sank his head and let his arms fall to his side in surrender.

Why fight him?

All this time he had been praying every night that Sherlock Holmes was safe. And here he was.

This was an answer to prayers. This was a chance to start again, something not many got. A chance to say all the things he wanted to say but couldn't. Why did he feel the need to cover everything up again?

Then, John felt something he hadn't before. Not from Sherlock, anyways.

While his head was down, Sherlock had stepped forward in understanding and wrapped his arms around John's waist in a warm embrace.

"I'm so sorry John," whispered Sherlock.

John, surprised at Sherlock's display of emotions, mimicked Sherlock's arms and buried his head in the dead man's shoulder.

At that moment, John lost all control he had maintained the past year and let it all out on the shoulder and support of his beloved friend. He felt safe in Sherlock's arms.

He clenched his fists onto the familiar overcoat and burst into tears.

The thunder rumbled and lightning flashed behind the clouds.

_

Sherlock let the embrace continue. He missed John too.

He could hardly stand not telling him sooner, but he had to make sure it was safe. John didn't have to know the circumstances behind his faked suicide. Not yet, at least. For now he would let John find the comfort he had long been searching for.

Sherlock rested his forehead on top of John's blond hair, wishing that somehow his thoughts would flow from his mind into John's.

Sherlock peered at the gravestone again. It was marked with his own name, the letters golden and appearing so permanent, shouting the name of yet another lost soul.

It was amazing how many lies could be told under the name of Sherlock Holmes.

No, not this one. This one deserved to be revealed. The lie that Sherlock Holmes needed no one had circulated the city for ages.

But for no longer would it linger in his best friend's head.

"John?" Sherlock said quietly.

"Mm?" John replied muffled, still sobbing in his shoulder.

A single tear slid from Sherlock's oceanic eyes.  
"You changed me, too."


End file.
